


Almost

by honestgrins



Series: Until the Bitter End [7]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 04:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9417881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestgrins/pseuds/honestgrins
Summary: Prompt: Tyler deserved better, and he deserved a proper mourning.





	

Bonnie had all but pushed her out of the cabin, despite Caroline not wanting to leave her alone with Enzo. Without her magic, Bonnie was vulnerable. All Caroline wanted was to protect her friend, but that argument didn't go so well with the stubborn witch.

"I'll be fine," Bonnie had insisted. "He would never really hurt me."

As she drove home, Caroline tried not to let those words sink like a stone in her stomach. How many times had she thought that of everyone? After all, she never expected Elena to walk into her hospital room, only to actually be Katherine ready to turn her into a vampire.

Caroline didn't have a good track record for trusting people with her safety or the safety of loved ones. Sighing, she realized going home to Josie and Lizzie was probably what she needed to feel a bit more grounded. She had finally grown used to Seline's presence in their lives, but she just wanted to be with her babies. A bad feeling had been eating at her all day, and her daughters were always great at distracting her with their energy.

As though sensing her need for distraction, her phone buzzed. Ready to tell Stefan all about their unsuccessful day with Enzo, she was surprised to see it wasn't her fiance calling. "Hey, Matt!"

Staggered breathing came through the line, putting Caroline on edge. "Matt, are you okay?"

With a choked sob, Matt's voice was shaky when he managed to speak. "C-Care…"

"What's wrong, Matt?" she asked, trying to keep calm as her heart raced in fear. "Are you hurt?"

"Tyler–" He broke off to take deep breaths, another voice murmuring hushed comfort. Matt never hyperventilated, he had always been the calmest of any of them. "Ty–"

"What about Tyler? I just checked in with him a couple weeks ago." If her monthly calls with an ex-boyfriend bothered Stefan, he never mentioned it. Caroline was insistent on keeping up the habit, started down in Texas when she was feeling particularly detached from her old life. She had Bonnie, Matt, and Tyler left, and she'd be damned before she lost contact. "He's still in New York, right?"

"He's dead."

Squeezing her grip on the steering wheel, Caroline's blood felt like ice in her veins. Death was hardly a new thing for them, but Tyler had made it out. He was living a somewhat normal life, even his Armory tasks more mundane than one would expect to be handled by a werewolf.

Idly, she wondered how he handled turning with the wolf population he had found up north. Intimately aware of how tough the transition had been for him the first time, Caroline realized the ease he had developed as a hybrid might not have carried through his brief "just human" phase until he triggered the gene again.

Perhaps she should have tried harder to stay in his life. Even after everything that had happened with them, she loved him. Tyler was her high school sweetheart, the first boyfriend she wanted to run away with, the man she fought so hard to protect, the wolf she didn't know how to soothe when his need for revenge eventually made her break. She could have fought harder. She should have, if this was the result.

Tyler was dead, and she didn't know what to do. When in doubt, however, Caroline Forbes was a planner. "We should have the funeral in Mystic Falls," she decided, avoiding any real reaction to the news. "He would want to be buried with his parents. I still have the keys you left me for the Lockwood mansion, so I'll open it up and get things ready to host the wake."

Her planning hit a brick wall when Matt spoke again.

"Damon killed him."

Where Tyler's death made her feel cold, Damon's fault sent rage sizzling through her. Usually, anger flashed through her like a wave: consuming for a moment, then a chance to breathe and deal. This, though, this was slow. Building. It had been building against Damon for years, and the dam was finally closed to bursting.

Matt was still crying, though, and Caroline could handle her feelings later. Her friend needed her. "Are you alone, Matt? Do you want to come home?"

"I've got my dad," he answered, gasping for air between sobs.

Caroline's eyebrows flew up in surprise, wondering when that happened, but it could wait - for Tyler's funeral. "I'll get things set up for the wake, you won't have to do anything except to–" Caroline cut herself off, the tears welling in her eyes finally falling without her permission. "Can you bring him home? Please?"

"Y-yeah," Matt promised. "I'll take care of him."

Unable to answer, Caroline just left the phone line open, both crying.

Tyler Lockwood once refused the chance to be the love of her life, and Caroline used to blame him for that - for leaving her, time and again. Everyone left her, and she had just been so tired of it. Maybe he wouldn't have been so stern on keeping his distance if she had forgiven him more than she had.

She could have been on his speed dial for when he ran into Damon on whatever siren spiral the dick was on. She might have been on the phone with him, setting up dinner plans while he was in the area. Hell, she might have known he was coming beforehand, rather than getting news of his untimely death just miles down I-20.

Instead, Tyler had to face her personal demon alone. He probably died alone, the way he hoped he never would. He deserved so much more than that.

He was a great love, a better friend, a gentle soul charged with a fighting heart and temperament. He had escaped their horror story of a town, but the villain found him anyway.

He almost survived, until he didn't.

Caroline shook her head, her expression hardening in hatred for the man who couldn't stop ruining everything. "We're going to kill him, Matt," she promised, sending a silent apology to Stefan for making it. "He doesn't get forgiven for this."

Sighing, Matt sounded tired, so tired. "He always does."

"Not this time." Pulling into the driveway, she needed to deal with this burning desire to tear Damon's heart from his chest before going inside to see her girls. It was surprisingly easy when she pictured her friend on the other side of the call. Matt had suffered, too. "I love you, Matt. Please be careful."

"I'll see you soon."

The call ended, two lonely beeps sounding in the darkness of the car. She wiped the tears from her eyes, biting her lip as she mentally tallied a to-do list for the funeral. She would have to tell the others, not wanting Matt to be forced to do it again.

Bonnie needed to know, maybe Ric could reach out to Jeremy.

Stefan was still on his saving Damon kick. He would understand her anger, definitely, but she was still scared he would resent her for wanting his brother to die. Worry buzzed in her head until she remembered what was at stake.

Tyler almost survived, but he didn't. June wedding be damned, Caroline would make sure his memory did survive.

And that his death would be avenged.


End file.
